Narrative Theory

 

Different types of narrative.

Tim O'sullivan(1998) said that the media text reflects the setting and tells us some kind of story. They also have a purpose for example horror films test our fears and scare us which is shown through by using music, pauses and pace to make us jump. They are set in 'scary' places such as haunted houses, abandoned buildings and woods which make us weary of them.
     On the other hand, Sci-fi films are usually set on other planets, in spaceships or in futuristic surroundings which relfects the fact it is about aliens or supernatural things. For example the film 'Inception' is about a man who can enter the minds of people and steal thier secrets, even though we know this cannot happen in real life,  and is set in a futuristic version of earth therefore we can tell it is Sci-fi.

Kate Domaile- Every story ever told can be fitted into one of eight narrative types:

Archilles-The fatal flaw (Superman)
Candide- The indomitable hero (Indiana Jones)
Cinderella-The dream comes true (Pretty Woman)
Circe-The chase (The Terminator)
Faust-Selling your soul (Devil's Advocate)
Orpheus-The loss of something personal (The sixth sense)
Romeo and Juliet-The love story (Titanic)
Tristan and Iseult-The love triangle (Casablanca)

Sven Carlson suggests that music videos, in general, fall into two catergories, performance clips and conceptual clips.

   For example the music video for Ed Sheeran's song 'One' is of Ed Sheeran playing his guitar along to the song se we can see him performing it. Where as the video for 'Dont judge me' by Chris Brown (Shown below) is conceptual because it tells the story of him going into the army to do a misson.

     He said that the common places to record are recording studios, bath tub, streets and parks.
Art clip-No perceptible visual narrative and contains no lip syncing.

Pam Cook- The standard hollywood narrative structure should have:

1. Linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution.
2. A high degree of narrative closure.
3. A fictional world that contains verisimilitude especially goverened by spatial and temporal coherance.

Equilibrium-Disruption-Quest-Resolution

Barthes(1977) Narative works with five different codes and the enigma code works to keep up setting problems or puzzles for the audience.

Claude Levi'Strauss(1958) Narative amounts to that fact he believed all stories operated to certain clear binary opposites e.g. good VS. evil, black VS. white, rich VS. poor etc.
        -Essentially complicated world is reduced to be simple.